Pull Me From the Edge
by Grettigirl123
Summary: Bobby is called to the hospital after Dean took a fall down a ravine & is badly injured while camping with Sam. When Bobby talks to an irate Dean, he's told that not only did Sam not help Dean after he fell, but had left him at the bottom of the cliff. When Sam shows up at the hospital, Bobby demands some answers, but what Sam tells him is more than Bobby bargained for. Bobbys POV
1. Chapter 1

Pull Me From The Edge

_**I have never done a story in a first person point of view, and I'm hoping I'm finding Bobby's voice well enough. This is story takes place in mid-season 7, obviously before Bobby's death. Anything else I reveal would have potential to be spoilers for the second and last chapter, so that's really all I can tell you. I really hope you enjoy it, I thank you for taking a look, and as always I make no profit. I hope you have a moment to let me know what you think of it so far. **_

I was on the road to the hospital about five minutes after I got the call from the E.R. They said they had a Dean Bonham there who was in the process of being admitted and treated for a broken hip, among other injuries, and Dean had asked them to notify me. The boys had left my place yesterday, headed down to Nebraska to check out a possible case, and had planned to crash last night at my old fishing cabin on the way there out on Hiram's Ridge.

As I pulled into the hospital parking lot, a gnawing ache ate away at the inside of my gut. Of course I was concerned for Dean's injuries, but that wasn't all that was causing the acid to boil in my belly. I've known Dean since he was in kindergarten, and in all that time, even with all the bad injuries he's had, he's never had a hospital notify me when he's been hurt. He's just not that way. And since I knew he wasn't having them call me on_ his_ behalf, that could only mean that there was some sort of trouble with Sam. I tried to convince that I was just being paranoid, but then again, if nothing was wrong with Sam, how come he hadn't called me about Dean being hurt?

I followed the receptionist's direction to the room they had just admitted Dean to and opened the door. I stood in shock for a moment at the site before me. The kid in the bed looked horrible. His head was thrown back on the pillow, face sunburned to a deep, angry red and his eyes were pinched as they winced in pain. He was very restless as he tried in vain to find a position in the bed that was comfortable and his breathing was very labored. A nurse was at his side, checking the I.V in his arm and telling him to try to relax, the meds should be kicking in soon. Upon seeing me, Dean's head shot off the pillow and his eyes grew wide in expectation.

"Bobby! Thank God." Dean managed to choke out. "Have you seen him? Is he here?"

Dean's voice sounded as if his vocal chords had been through a meat grinder.

"Is who here?" I asked. "Sam?"

Dean's tone became exasperated as he answered me. "Yeah, Sam. Where is he?"

I shook my head and frowned at him. "How the Hell should I know? Didn't he come with you?"

The hopeful look left Dean's eyes as he returned his head to the pillow. He cursed under his breath as he shook his head. "No, he didn't come with me, and when I get my hands on that little bastard….." Dean's sentence was cut short as the nurse brought a cup of water with a straw to Dean's lips. In spite of the anger Dean was obviously feeling and the severity of what he had started to tell me, Dean stopped and took a long, grateful draw from the straw and gulped down three big mouthfuls of water. I could tell Dean's throat was killing him as he winced in pain as he swallowed.

The nurse set the cup down on the stand next to Dean's bed. "You really shouldn't be talking right now." She advised. "You strained your vocal chords quite a bit hollering for help and they are greatly inflamed. Not to mention becoming so overheated and dehydrated in the sun while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Your throat really needs time to heal, and that means very little to no talking." She adjusted the pillow under his head. "And your throat is the least of your worries compared to the broken bones you suffered from the fall. Now, just lie back and try to get some rest. I'm sure whatever you have to tell your friend can wait a bit."

The grateful look on Dean's face was quickly replaced with annoyance. As Dean opened his mouth to answer her and undoubtedly say something offensive that he was going to regret later, I stepped in to play interference. "Um, if you don't mind, could you give us just a minute? Then, I promise, I will make sure he gets some rest." She blew out a breath and placed her hands on her hips, thinking the situation over in her head. When she looked back up at me, I gave her an appreciative smile and reassured her. "It will only take a second, hon." I placed my hand on her shoulder and gently guided her toward the door. "Thank you so much."

She turned as she reached the door to reiterate her orders. "Okay, just for a minute. Then you need to let him rest." Again, I nodded at her and promised I would do just that as I closed the door behind her.

I turned back toward Dean, cocked my head to the side and smiled "I'm sure she means well." I quipped.

Dean gave a snide smile in return. "Oh, I'm sure she does." He croaked.

I went to Dean's bedside and sat down. "Okay, first things first…..what the Hell happened to you?"

Dean flopped his head back down on the pillow and blew out a breath as he calmed himself down enough to recall the incident. "Sam and I had stayed at your cabin last night like we said we were going to. We were headed out this morning and were packing up our gear. We'd started a fire last night at the edge of the ridge overlooking the ravine, so this morning I went to check on it to make sure it was out. Sam was right behind me, bringing the duffels out to the Impala. I crouched to empty my water bottle over the last embers of the ashes and as I stood up, I stumbled backward and tripped over some firewood. Next thing I know, I'm falling backwards down the side of the embankment toward the ravine."

"Jesus, Dean." I responded, "That's a hundred foot drop, pretty much straight down!"

"You're telling me. It scared the crap out of me! Anyway, I somehow ended up on a narrow ledge about half way down, but when I landed, my body hit against the rock ledge really hard. I could actually hear my own ribs snap at the impact, and felt a searing pain in my hip that went all the way down my leg and across my back. I laid there for a few minutes to regain my senses." Dean's facial features turned cold and his eyes pressed into little slits. "It was then that I started yelling for Sam to come help me."

I waited for a moment for Dean to continue talking. When he didn't say anything more, I urged him on. "Well? Then what?"

"Then nothing!" Dean shouted in a hoarse voice barely above a whisper. "I laid on that piece of granite in the baking hot sun for the next three hours, hollering out and practically begging Sam to come help me. Luckily, a couple of guys finally came by in a canoe, said they heard me screaming from clear across the lake and came to see what was going on. They called 911, climbed up the side of the ravine to get to me and gave me some water and some soaked down towels."

"And Sam never helped at all? He didn't do anything?"

"No! Nothing! Even after the rescue came and pulled me back up to the cabin, Sam was nowhere to be found. The car was there, but no Sam. It's like he disappeared or something." Dean shook his head in disbelief. "How could he do that? How could he just stand there and do nothing while I'm lying there hurt like that?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. There had to be an explanation. "He must not have known that you had fallen, Dean. You know Sam would be over there in a heartbeat to help you."

"Well he wasn't!" Dean snapped back. "And he was standing, like, six feet away from me when I took the nosedive. There's no possible way he didn't see me, or hear me when I was screaming for him. Hell, Bobby, those guys heard me from about a mile away. How could Sam not hear me?" A very troubled look crossed Dean's face as he seemed to recall something else. "Plus….." He began.

"Plus what?" I asked. When he didn't answer me right away, I prodded him a little more. "Spit it out, kid, plus what?"

Dean brought his hand to his face and pinched bridge of his nose between his eyes. "Look, I know I had been lying for a while in the hot sun, and I could have been seeing things…" He took a deep breath as he continued. "But at one point I looked up to the top of the ravine where I had fallen and I know I saw Sam standing there, looking down at me. At first I was relieved, and even said, 'Thank God, there you are. Come help me out of this.', but he just stood there, staring at me. When I hollered up to him again, he just turned and walked away." Dean's eyes glossed over a bit as he confessed this information to me. "Just walked away."

I scratched my head as I sat there in stunned silence. My brain ached for a way to come up with a reasonable explanation for what Dean had told me, but I had nothing. "And you say that when you were brought back up to the cabin, Sam wasn't there?"

My question seemed to snap Dean out of his memory for a moment. "Nope. He was gone. I even hollered some more for him with what little voice I had left, and an EMT looked in the cabin, but he wasn't in there. It's like he vanished into thin air."

I shook my head. "None of this makes any sense. Where in the Hell could he have taken off to?"

Dean's expression became almost pleading. "I don't know, Bobby, but you've got to find him. First of all, I owe him a serious beat down, and secondly, I need to understand what happened."

Almost as if on cue, right outside the door the nurse could be heard arguing with a man, whose deep voice was all too familiar.

"Sir, you can't go in there. He's already got someone in there, and he needs his rest. You'll have to wait until you can see him."

"If he's in there, then I need to see him. He's my brother! I need to see if he's okay."

My eyes widened as I looked from the door and back at Dean, who seemed to have the exact same expression on his face as I'm sure I had on mine. Dean tried to sit up, but almost instantly fell back against the mattress, writhing in pain from his ribs and hip.

I pointed at Dean as I stood from my chair. "You stay put. I'll go talk to him and find out what the Hell's going on."

Dean shook his head as he caught his breath from the pain. "No, Bobby. You tell him to get his ass in here. I need to talk to that son of a bitch and find out why he ditched me when I needed him."

I turned again as I placed my hand on the door knob. "I will send him in here, but first I'm just gonna talk to him. Something here ain't adding up, and I'm gonna find out what it is."

I left Dean's room and entered the corridor and sure enough, there was Sam still trying to push his way through the nurse, who by now had some security guards quickly approaching them. I quickly made my way to the nurse's side and intervened. "It's okay," I said as I put my hands up to try to hold off the guards before they grabbed onto Sam. "I know him. He's with me. I'll take it from here, and we're just gonna go over here and talk for a bit while Dean rests." I placed my hands on Sam's shoulders and pushed him away from the others. At first he pushed back a bit and resisted, but after a moment he let me guide him toward a small sitting area across the hallway.

Once I was sure we were clear from the security guards and the nurse, I closed the door to the waiting area and turned toward Sam. I pointed to one of the chairs. "Sit!" I barked out at him.

As Sam reluctantly chose a chair, I wiped my hand down my face and tried to pull my thoughts together. Throughout the years, Dean and I have had our definite ups and downs and have had our fair share of shouting matches. We could holler and lash out at each other when we didn't see eye to eye, and we've even been guilty of name calling and a few things I'm sure we both have regretted afterward, but through all of it, we always knew how the other one felt deep down, and we knew that no matter what we'd be okay, we'd still be a family. Dealing with Sam was different, and even though I had known Sam just as long as I'd known Dean, I could only remember a small handful of times that we had been tangled up in a shouting match, and for the most part it had been me shouting and him standing there looking pathetic. Sam didn't screw up often, but when he did, it was usually a colossal, massive screw up enough to shock you down to your core. I had a feeling that this may be one of those times.

Bracing myself for just about anything, I started in on him. "Okay, Sam, you'd better start talking! What happened out at the cabin and what the Hell were you doing while your brother laid there hurt on that ledge? I need answers and I need them NOW!"

Sam stared down at the floor, his whole body shaking. It only took me a moment to realize that something else was going on with him. I reached out and touched his arm, and he jolted back from the connection as if he'd been electrocuted. His head sprung up and he made eye contact with me as if he were seeing me for the very first time. He looked around the room and gave a few sharp blinks, as if trying to bring his surroundings into focus. He then returned his gaze to me.

My heart started pounding as a lump grew in my throat. Something was definitely very, very wrong with him. Instantly, my tone softened.

"What is it, Kid? What's wrong?"

**TBC**

_**Thanks again for reading. I hope you stay with me for the last chapter. It should be up within a week's time. **_


	2. Chapter 2

_**First of all, thank you all so much for the kind reviews, favorites and a record-breaking alerts count (for me, anyway). Your support means so much to me, and I appreciate it very much. I'm sorry the second chapter has taken me so long to get to, but I've undergone shoulder surgery and it greatly interfered with my typing abilities….along with the ability to do pretty much anything else with my arm and hand, so thanks for sticking with me. **_

_**So here it is, the second half of the story. I hope it lives up to any expectations, along with making sense and tying things together. I've had this story stuck in my head for a while now, and it's gone thru several different versions, and I'm glad to finally have it on a piece of paper. As always, I'd love to hear what you think of it, good or bad, just a few words. Thank you.**_

Chapter 2, Pull Me From the Edge

When I didn't get a response from Sam I snapped my fingers in front of his face. "Hey," I said, "Are you okay?"

My finger snaps seemed to awaken something in him as he nodded his head all too quickly. "I'm fine." He answered, and then he looked me in the eyes. "I'm fine."

His answer automatically made my eyes roll. Typical, sure-fire Winchester answer to just about everything ….'I'm fine.' Those boys could be getting their hearts ripped out through their pie holes and the last words that would ever be heard coming from them would be, 'I'm fine'. It was beyond obvious that just the opposite was true, but given the mental state the kid was in, I figured I would pick my battles on this one and just let his crap answer slide this time and didn't push him.

He looked again around the room and through the windowed door. "This is a hospital."

I frowned at him. "Yes, Sam, of course it's a hospital."

"So Dean is here?"

I sighed and rubbed at my temples. I thought once I came out here and spoke to Sam I would get some answers and things would make sense, but all I was getting was more and more confused. "Yes, Dean is here, the ambulance brought him in about an hour ago."

Sam's jaw clenched tight as he nodded slowly. "What happened to him?"

Okay, enough of this nonsense. I leaned forward in my chair I had set across from Sam to bring myself closer to him. I shook my head to clear it. "Sam, why don't we start over? Where have you been?"

Sam sat back a bit in his seat, most likely to distance himself from me as much as possible as he could sense the frustration in my voice. He rubbed the sweat off his hands on his denimed thighs and blew out a breath. "We were getting ready to leave and I decided to take a walk in the woods to clear my head. When I got back, I couldn't find Dean. I knew he should be close by, because the car was still there, but I couldn't find him. After I looked for a while, I pinged the GPS on his phone and followed the signal here." He paused for a moment and then asked his question again. "So, why is Dean here?"

"He's here because he got hurt from the fall, Sam. Why the Hell do you think he's here?"

Sam's eyes grew wide and he shook his head in disbelief. "No," he managed to spit out at me as his body once again started to visibly shake. "That's not possible."

I stared dumbfounded at Sam with my mouth hung open like a codfish. I swear the more answers I got from this kid, the more this whole thing was getting messed up. "It's a 100 foot drop, how is getting hurt falling down something like that not possible?" I was getting more and more exasperated as I spoke and began to ramble. " And what in the Hell do you mean you decided to take a walk? Dean said you were standing right there when he fell down the ridge and that there was no way you didn't see what had happened. How could you…."

I let my last sentence trail off as I realized what was happening at the same time I was speaking. Sam was still sitting across from me, but his gaze had gone past me and was fixed over my shoulder. His eyes widened in horror as the blood quickly drained from his face. In the next instant, he instinctively clasped his hands and dug his right thumb into the palm of his left hand. That could only mean one thing….one horrifying thing.

Ever since Cas decided to go rogue last year and bring Sam's Hell wall crumbling down, life with Sam has been a perpetual game of Three Card Monty. He could go days, even weeks acting perfectly fine, but then just as you start to believe that things might just be okay and get back to normal the crazy comes knocking and we're back to square one with him. Day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute you just never knew for sure which Sam you were going to get, before the Cage or after.

The first week of Sam's hallucinations had been the worst so far, and during that time Dean had tried to teach Sam the difference between reality and flashbacks. Dean had explained that pain in hallucinations is different from real, physical pain, so Dean used Sam's stitched up hand as a focal point. When Sam began seeing images of Lucifer or any of his mirages, he would squeeze his bad hand, letting the ache and throb of it keep him grounded and help him determine what was real.

By the way Sam was squeezing the life out of that hand, it looked like this bout with Lucifer was a doozy.

I cleared my throat and took a deep breath, not quite sure who I was trying to calm down, Sam or me. "Okay, kid" I coaxed, "Just take it easy and tell me what's going on with you."

Without taking his panic stricken eyes off whatever or whoever he was seeing over my shoulder, Sam answered me. "He's right there," he whispered as his eyes darkened in rage, "And he's laughing at me."

I knew from some experience that what Sam needed right now was some reassurance and to be kept focused, so I turned to where he was looking and waved my arm out. "There's no one there, Sam." I said. I then turned back to him and prodded him to keep talking. "So what happened today after Dean fell? What _really_ happened?"

Sam took his eyes off the delusion that was going on behind me and focused on me. Very slowly and with as much composure as he could muster, he opened up to me.

"I was putting the bags in the car as we were getting ready to go. I was just about to ask Dean if he'd locked the door of the cabin when I heard him cry out, then I heard a crashing sound. As I looked up to see what had happened, I saw it."

"Saw what, Sam?" I continued to coax.

Sam looked down at the floor for a few minutes, and continued to cautiously sneak glances over my shoulder. When he looked back at me he had tears welling in his eyes.

"The…..fire." he whispered. "I saw flames shooting out of the ravine headed straight toward the sky." His voice was shaky, but he continued. "I tried to tell myself that it wasn't really happening, but I could feel the heat of the flames singeing my skin, and I could hear the screams coming from the pit, and that was nothing compared to the smell…." He closed his eyelids as the welling tears proved to be heavy enough to leave a wet trail down his cheeks. His face held a desperate look as he shook his head and made his confession. "I wanted to help Dean, I really did, but…..I couldn't go near the edge. I knew if I did," Sam's eyes became angry slits as he finished his sentence through gritted teeth as he again looked over my shoulder "that HE would shove me back in." He looked back down at the floor. "I just kept telling myself that the whole thing wasn't real, and that Dean was okay. The whole time Lucifer kept mocking me, telling me what a coward I was for not being strong enough to go in after Dean to help him." Sam's voice began to shake as rage built inside him. "He even made me go to the edge at one point, just to be able to hear Dean screaming."

I nodded as I recalled Dean telling me that Sam had come to the edge and look down at him. "And did you see him lying there?"

Sam adamantly shook his head. "No." he answered. "All I saw was fire, and blood…and…..broken, mangled meat that used to be people. After just a few seconds, I couldn't take it anymore and turned away to throw up. After that I just ran into the woods….trying to escape it. I ran for about a mile and then sat with my head in my hands until the screaming in my ears finally stopped. The whole time I kept telling myself that it was all a hallucination, that none of it was real. Dean was fine, and when I got back it would be all over and Dean would be standing at the car bitching at me for taking so long." He tried to manage a faint smile, but it quickly faded as he wiped his face with the back of his hand.

I could feel the sting of tears building in my eyes at the thought of Sam going through that kind of torture, but I blinked them back and concentrated on being strong for him. Of course now it made perfect sense that witnessing a fall like the one Dean took could very well provoke a nasty flashback to his own falling into the pit. I could have kicked myself for not thinking of it before.

I placed a soothing hand on his shoulder. "It's alright, Sam. Dean'll be okay. He's got a few broken bones and will be laid up for a while, but he'll heal and be good as new in no time."

A puzzled look crossed Sam's face as he asked a question. "How did Dean get back up from the fall with broken bones? He couldn't have climbed back up….."

I quickly explained about the campers in the canoe, conveniently leaving out the part about how long Dean had laid there before they came to help. Sam looked completely defeated. I felt for the kid, I really did, and if there was one damned thing I could do to take his pain for him, I would do it in a heartbeat, but there are some things that cannot be cured, and this seemed to be one of them.

Sam's head seemed to be clearer now, and it was looking as though he had a better grasp at reality. He stood from his chair. "I want to see Dean now." He decided. "I need to try to set things right with him."

I also stood and placed my hands on his shoulders. "Okay, you can see him, but let me go in and talk to him first, okay? I just gotta explain a few things to him, then you can come in."

Sam snorted as he lowered his head. "You mean you've got to try to make him not hate me for what I did."

I sighed and patted his arm. "Just give me a minute, alright? He doesn't hate you, he's just really confused right now." As I took a few steps toward the door, I turned to give him one last instruction, "Just don't talk to anyone until I get back. Your head is still a little foggy and I don't need you getting dragged off to the padded section of the hospital." My comment made him smile as he promised he would sit tight.

A few minutes later, I opened the door to Dean's room and peeked out into the corridor. "It's okay, Sam. You can come in now."

Sam sheepishly entered Dean's room and leaned against the door after I'd closed it. He mostly stared at the floor and snuck glances up at his brother, who had calmed down some after I'd explained most of what Sam had told me. Sam wrung his hands together as he waited for Dean to say something, but this time it had nothing to do with Lucifer. The expression on the kid's face was nothing short of pitiful, like a little kid waiting for his father to get home for punishment.

Dean leaned against his pillows with his arms folded across his chest. His face still looked angry, but then again, it could have just been the sunburn. "Sam, get your ass over here."

Sam immediately went to the side of Dean's bed and sat in the chair next to him. Eyes still down, hands still together on his lap.

Dean's tone softened a hair, but he continued in a scolding tone. "Got something to say to me?" he asked.

That was about all Sam could take as his body crumbled across Dean's bed and he buried his head in his brother's chest. I could hear Sam sob from clear across the room as he offered his apology.

"I'm so sorry, Dean." Was all he could manage to say.

Dean sighed heavily as any and all anger or resentment left his body. He gave a quick glance up to me as I was wiping away a quick tear. He then looked back down to where Sam had disintegrated into his chest. He placed a hand on the back of Sam's head and soothingly said the only words that Dean could ever say at a time like this.

"It's okay, Sammy….it's all gonna be okay."

_**Thanks Again, ~Grettigirl **_


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